The other side
by ElaOfArdanien
Summary: For all who, like me, still wonder what happened to Sirius. We are in the Ministry of Magic: Sirius has just fallen behind the Veil and Harry, desperate, is in pursuit of Lord Voldemort. But: even heroes do make mistakes. Enjoy the unexpected!


**The other s****ide**

-

- -1-

„Harry, no!" The scream echoed through the wide, dark hall. "Please don't!" She was sobbing now.

He felt Dumbledore standing behind him. "The only difference between you and him is that you are still human," the old wizard said.

"You know I have to!" Harry shouted both at him and at Hermione. "Leave, if you can't stand the sight."

"And the thing that makes you human is that you still can feel mercy," Dumbledore continued calmly. "Something he has lost, like everything else. This is why he is weak, after all, can't you see? Let him be weak, and let go!"

Furiously, Harry watched him walk round Voldemort's defeated body. "How dare you telling me not to kill him? After everything he's done?"

Dumbledore stood as calm as the statues around them, on the other side of what was left of their enemy. "Just don't kill him."

"What if he is still strong enough to kill me? He has been, every time we thought him powerless! I have to stop him, and I have to do it now!"

"But not like this. Harry, trust me, it would be a mistake. I can't explain – I'm not really sure – Don't give yourself away. It will change you into nothing better than him."

Harry's laughter reached the walls and echoed back in hysteria. "Do you really think we are that different?" Contempt filled his voice. "He saw people die. I saw people die. He would do anything to succeed. So would I."

Hermione had come closer now. "But you, unlike him, do not feel pleasure in killing!" Her voice was shaking.

He turned round, with his wand still pointed at the crumbled figure on the floor at his feet. She was standing half a hall behind him, frightened.

"Do you really think I do not enjoy killing?" He laughed again and saw how the sound hurt her. "Believe me, I do. Right now, there is nothing I want more. I want it more than love, more than keeping our friendship, more than saving my soul. You have no idea how much I want it!"

He turned back to the figure at his feet and raised his voice.

"I thank you, Hermione, for all your friendship. I know you always believed in me and I'm sorry for failing you this time."

She screamed as he raised his wand, ran faster than he had ever expected her to be able to and grabbed his arm so hard that he stumbled. Suddenly there was life in the figure on the floor. Hermione screamed again as the dark mists in the corners of the hall began to drift closer and started to swirl around them.

"Now you see!" he yelled. "This is what will be next! I have to end it! Now, cause this'll be the only chance I'll ever get!"

"No, you don't. And not like this." Dumbledore still held his position on the other side of Voldemort's body. "If we must, the three of us will do it together. We are strongest this way." There was fear in his eyes.

Harry held his gaze. Very slowly and very coldly he said: "Do you know how much I dislike you, old man?"

Voldemort stirred and raised his head. The shadows crept closer. Harry shook both Hermione and Dumbledore from his sides. He had abandoned Ginny, he had left Ron behind, he had wished to be somebody else for uncounted and uncounted times, wished it ever since his parents died so long a time ago he had almost forgotten the reason.

He knew his curse would backfire on him like it did backfire on Voldemort the night he had tried to kill him and left him with a scar. All the years since he had been alive for this one sole purpose and he was not going to share his glory.

"Avada Kedavra!"

-

- -2-

If he had only known the way. If there had only been light.

He had been walking through darkness ever since he had come here. There seemed to be nothing else, only darkness and the path he was following, down under his feet, without knowing where he was going or why he was going there. He only remembered that he needed to tell somebody. And that he needed to do it soon.

--

After weeks and years of walking he reached a door. He was so surprised he stopped dead and looked up and down its plain facade. It was a door standing right there in front of him, strong and impossible to breach, but he found the doorknob easily. He turned it around and pushed the door open just a little. A sharp ray of light filled the darkness and blinded his eyes so thoroughly he had to close them to avoid the pain.

Good Lord!, he thought, his eyes still closed, opened the door a little further and stepped on the other side.

--

A woman stood there, waiting for him. He recognised her at once. It was her eyes, her face, the way she moved and turned to him. He felt like being child again, and gave himself away to what he had dreamed of thousands and thousands of nights, fell in her embrace and knew instantly that it was really her from the smell of her skin which he suddenly remembered more clearly than anything else.

"Is this Paradise?" he asked after a long while.

She laughed softly. "No, it's just what is behind the Gate."

--

She took him up the road over a narrow hill and to the outskirts of a small town in a valley so green and beautiful it hurt his eyes.

"Is this where you live?"

"This is where we have been waiting for you."

"You have been waiting for me?"

"Of course. And it's been many years. There is so much to tell!"

"But what is this place?" He needed to know.

"It's the other side. It's where you go when you die a wizard's death."

"A wizard's death?" He understood and stared at her. "You have been waiting here, waiting for me to be killed by a curse?"

She stopped to face him. "Yes, Harry, ever since he left us to return to the world of men."

"He was here?"

"In the beginning. Then he found a way to return, some evil magic I have no knowledge of. Ever since, we've feared for your life. Especially after he had regained his human body." Harry shuddered as he remembered Cedric's death and the dark lord's return.

"How could you be so sure I had no chance?" Bitterness swept over him and blurred all the happiness he had felt just a moment ago. He knew he had made a terrible mistake.

"How did you come here?" she answered.

"Do give me a moment. I will tell you soon."

-

- -3-

He had never imagined how glad he would be to see Sirius again. He soon felt guilty for embracing him before he embraced his father, who was standing nearby with a broad grin on his face, patiently waiting.

Harry felt uneasy with his parents around. They had left him so long ago that he hardly knew where in his life he was supposed to find room for them. They were living in a quiet neighbourhood in a house which was so much like the place Harry remembered from his childhood dreams that he wondered if everything in between, the Dursleys, Hogwarts and Voldemort, really had happened.

"I need to talk to you," he told Sirius after tea.

Sirius nodded. "I reckon we need a quiet place? Follow me." They left the house and entered a small park on the other side of the road. There were no birds, although the sun was setting, and hardly any wind. There was hardly any movement at all in the park which in his childhood days he was sure had been filled with children's laughter.

"I'm sorry for having been killed," Sirius began. "And I'm sorry for falling through the Veil. I should have left you a body to bury."

Harry shrugged. "Had no time to think 'bout that. I came here only minutes after you." Or had it been hours?

"Really?" Sirius rubbed his forehead. "Time flows differently on this side of the world. You will feel it soon enough. Or rather not feel it, that's the point."

"Sirius, I have to go back."

His godfather's face turned serious instantly. "Then I'll have to tell about one or the other possible complication."

"I know. But I have to."

"Will you tell me why?"

Harry drew breath. What was it he had done? "After Bellatrix-" His voice shook. "After you had fallen behind the curtain I followed Voldemort into the Ministry's entrance hall. There I killed Voldemort. Of course I knew the curse would backfire on me, but-" He stopped again. "Goodness, I've been so stupid! Incredibly, unbelievably stupid! I thought I was strong enough to work a curse to kill us both, or at least him. But Sirius, I think I killed me, and he is still alive back there on the other side! And it's all my fault!"

For some time Sirius helped himself thinking by running his hands through his long, luxuriously black hair. "I guess we would know if he had come here, too", he finally said.

"I hoped you would tell me he did", Harry answered dryly. "Since you can't, I hope you see why I have to go back and set things right."

"Your mother will be devastated."

"I have been devastated for fourteen years. It's never been a reason for her to try to come back."

"Of course it hasn't. Because it's impossible."

-

- -4-

She told him she had tried. According to what she said she had tried every possible, imaginable way, but without any success.

"The only way of coming back is to become an Inferius," James Potter said.

"You are not going to advise your own son to do such a thing!" Lily Potter shouted.

"Mum." The word tasted strange in his mouth. "My friends are in danger, and it is all my fault. I knew the curse would backfire on me. It's okay, as long as he is dead, too! If he is not, if he is still haunting the world on the other side, what am I doing here?"

"Aren't you happy to be with your mother and father again?"

The words were like needles under his skin. "Of course I am," he murmured.

"Let's have a rest and a good night's sleep," was what James Potter suggested. "We will talk in the morning."

Harry nodded. Lily invited Sirius, who had not yet found his own home, to stay as well, and then went upstairs to prepare the guest rooms.

--

One hour later Harry excused himself for the night. He had to wait only about five minutes until Sirius followed him.

"You are not going to sleep?"

"I am not going to stay." Time flowed differently on this side, and he already started to forget his purpose. He knew that in the morning it would be too late.

"I'll come with you." Sirius did not wait for Harry to agree. "You'll need my help, be sure."

"They will hate me for leaving", Harry murmured.

"You will hate yourself for not leaving", Sirius answered. Harry nodded and smiled at him in gratefulness for his usual amount of understanding. In silence they waited until Lily and James had gone to bed, then they left the house through the back door.

-

- - 5 –

The streets were empty when they walked out of town. The place seemed lonely, almost forlorn in the dark.

"Now tell me about your plan," Sirius demanded when they reached the fields.

"What plan?"

Sirius chuckled. "If I had had any doubt if it really was you, now I would be sure!"

Harry didn't feel like returning the laugh. "I thought we could go back to the Gate and have a good look around."

"And then what? Sitting there and waiting for inspiration?"

"You are here only about one hour longer than me, so don't tell me what I am supposed to do!" His worry made him impatient.

"Harry, you can't become an Inferius. That's insane!"

"It may. But what else is there?"

"Inferi are revoked by the living. You can't revoke yourself when you're dead!"

"This is why we will have to contact somebody on the other side."

"The only one who reanimates Inferi on a regular basis is Lord Voldemort!"

"Fine. Then it's him we have to find."

--

The Gate was shut, but they had expected nothing else.

"Maybe we can escape when the next soul enters," Harry suggested.

"Do you think this is why all the others are here, too?" Sirius answered nervously. An old man was sitting on a stone nearby. In the dark behind them they heard voices and laughter and movement on the path.

"No way," the old man on the stone told them leisurely. "I've come to the Gate every night since I died. It's no use, but we still come. Mainly because there is nothing else to do."

"Why did you listen to our talk?" Harry answered angrily. "Our business is none of yours!"

"I don't have to listen to know why you are here, boy." The old man left the stone and came closer. "You are new in our world, aren't you?" He studied Harry's face in the pale light of the stars on the clear, moonless sky.

Harry felt how the gaze made him calmer. "I need to go back."

The old man sighed. "The only way back is through becoming an Inferius."

"See?" Harry turned to Sirius, then back to the old wizard. "Tell me, where are they? How can I become one of them?"

The old man grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and pulled Harry's ear close to his mouth. "He summons them every now and then. You-know-who."

"How?"

"Boy! I have no idea!" The old man pushed him away. "You're nuts. There is no way back, not for the lovesick, not for the fools, not for heroes, especially not for those who become insane of boredom. See the fires, boy?" He pointed into the dark behind the path. "There you'll find guys of your age. They found a way to smoke the grass of the fields, they say it almost tastes like dope."

Harry could have hit him. "Just tell me. Where do I find the Inferi?"

"Easy, boy, don't look at me like this. There is a cave, an underground cave near the ocean. That's all I know. Believe me."

"Sirius, time to go." Harry let the old man be where he was. "Dope! Tells me to smoke dope! Nothing else to do here, huh?"

"With eternity to come? In this place? Certainly not. We could say hello and ask. Maybe they'll give us a try."

"Sirius! We really are in a hurry!"

Sirius sighed. "That's always been your problem, Harry. No sense of humour."

-

- - 6 -

It took them days and weeks of walking. First they worried about food and took care of going to sleep every night, but after the third or fourth day they realised they didn't need any food, and they didn't need sleep either. They kept the custom of eating whenever they had the chance, but they soon lost interest in it. They grew accustomed to walking in the wild, like hunters or rangers or knights of old, only stopping now and then to have a good, hearty discussion about the way.

There seemed to be no magic in this world, no wands, no broomsticks, no magical creatures, nor any kind of magical artefacts. There also seemed to be no seasons, no change of weather; they walked through endless sunshine on bright summer's days, through endless paradise. One day they noticed they had forgotten why they were walking at all.

--

They reached the cave just in time. What for they had no clue of. The place vibrated with power, as if all magic had been summoned hither. They found they could walk through stone, drawn by an invisible force that made them hasten to the deep root of the cliff where they found the lake. As Harry put a foot into the water he suddenly and overwhelmingly remembered everything.

Shadows kept floating out of the water to the other side of the lake where they were creeping up the walls of the cave. "Sirius, I think we have to follow them," Harry told his companion.

"I'm with you," Sirius answered grimly.

Harry knew he was afraid. They both were. The water of the lake was icy cold. They swam past a small island in the middle, reached the other shore and climbed out of the water. Evil magic was in the air. Harry looked up the wall and realised that the shadows were actually human figures, empty-faced, following a silent summons out of the cave. He felt how the magic took hold on him, lifted him up and carried him up the wall.

"I can't!" a voice shouted from below. Harry turned his head. "I can't! It's not working!" Sirius stood there at the edge of the lake, reaching up with his hands like a child that wishes to be lifted up by his parent. "Tell me how you're doing it!"

"I'm doing nothing!" Harry answered. He turned and tried to climb back down, but to his horror realised he couldn't. Fear crept into his heart. He tried again, but the magic was stronger and like dust in the wind he was carried up to the heights of the cave, leaving Sirius behind.

"Maybe it's because I was killed while fighting him!" he shouted back down. "You were killed by Bellatrix, remember? He has no power over you." He was already too far away to understand Sirius's reply.

Harry felt the magic all over his body, infiltrating his nervous system, taking possession of his muscles, and slowly taking possession also of his mind and thoughts. It wouldn't be long until he had become a subject to the Dark Lord's will. There was no way to stop the process.

Understanding reached him that he had made a second, grave mistake.

-

- - 7 -

They moved like an army. There was no talking, no murmuring, just silence and darkness and the sound of their many hundred feet. Harry would have liked to talk to one of his fellow Inferi, but he was unable to utter a single word, as if his vocal cords had quitted their service. Besides, there wouldn't have been any answer. He seemed to be the only one still trying to use his own thoughts, while all the others moved as if drawn by threads of strong rope fastened to their limbs.

They were walking through the thickest of woods. The positive thing of being an Inferius was that he didn't feel any fear. The magical creatures that were for sure living in a forest of such magnitude seemed all to be hiding from their sight.

Somehow being unable to talk was what Harry hated most. He needed information, as quickly as possible. While he was concentrating on calling his speech organs back to work he noticed that their small company had left the wood and were walking on the open fields towards the lights of a small town some miles ahead.

He felt how anger swelled in him like the fire of a dragon shortly before inflaming the world. He knew that the Dark Lord was in this town. The magic that forced him to go on walking was growing and told him of a fight between the Dark Lord and his enemies and that he had called the Inferi to his aid, to help him win. O lamentable twist of fate that bound him to the wrong side!

--

Dumbledore was standing high on top of the town's wall. It was dark night; otherwise the place would have been full of muggles. Light splashed to and fro between his and his opponent's wands. If there had ever been a wizard equal to the Dark Lord's power it was Dumbledore, they both knew it.

Down below, Voldemort's newly arrived army started attacking the small group of members of the Order who had accompanied Dumbledore on this task.

"No, I won't!" a voice suddenly screamed from behind. Dumbledore stopped and listened. He would have recognised this voice among thousands. Voldemort had recognised the voice, too, and grim laughter filled the air. The memory of Harry's dead body and how the Dark Lord had tricked him was enough for Dumbledore to forget all his manners and education.

Voldemort, who knew for sure what a coward Dumbledore was, suddenly had the tip of his wand at his breast. "Avada Kedavra," Dumbledore whispered. "Oh please, not again!" the Dark Lord replied with an angry hiss, then fell to the ground and expired.

--

"Harry!"

"The sole Inferius who ever freed himself from his master's will." Harry presented himself to Dumbledore after the company of Inferi had started on their way back to the cave. "But I reckon I'm still dead, so we'll only have a few minutes. I see I've come too late. Poor Sirius, he missed all the fun."

"Harry, are you all right?"

"No, I'm not, think why." He threw an half apologetic, half sarcastic glance at his headmaster. "I'm sorry for killing myself. I've come here to take revenge, but you have obviously been faster. Now Voldemort is dead, you will live happily ever after and I am stuck on the other side and will become insane of regret."

"Oh Harry, but this is what I have tried to tell you back at the Ministry of Magic. Voldemort cannot be killed. He has come back once, he will return a second time. Have you ever heard of Horcruxes?" Harry listened, dumbfounded, to Dumbledore's explanation.

"So you are about to tell me that there is an unknown number of parts of Voldemort's soul lying around, which we have to destroy before we are maybe able to finally send him to hell?"

"About right, Harry, yes. The first one is already destroyed. Do you remember Tom Riddle's diary?"

Harry nodded. He didn't understand at all. "So tell me, why then did you curse him right now?"

"To gain time. We need time to find all the Horcruxes. The teachers of Hogwarts are going to help me, as well as the Ministry's Aurors. Hermione is already locked in the library, searching for useful spells. Maybe she will find a way to contact you in the future. Maybe we will find a way to constantly free you from Voldemort's claim and of course I will make an exception and you'll become the first Inferius ever taught at Hogwarts. In the meantime, will you agree to taking care of Voldemort, there on the other side? Get on his nerves, hinder him from coming back as long as you can."

Harry nodded. "Of course I will. You have my word."

"Brave and useful as ever, Gryffindor", Dumbledore proudly exclaimed.

Harry cleared his throat. "Professor, I'm sorry for calling you an old man, back that night, I - was out of my senses."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Oh Harry, it's all right. I didn't mind. When you, like me, have been a teacher for most of your lifetime, there are certain things you won't become incensed about anymore."

-

- - 8 -

Sirius was waiting for him outside the cave. He was sitting on a small space of grass on top of the cliff, watching seagulls sailing in the blue sky above him.

"There you are!" he exclaimed when he saw Harry walking towards him.

"Up you get!" Harry smiled. "We have a prisoner to take care of."

--

They were sitting in the Potters' dining room and enjoyed Lily Potter's legendary cooking. Harry's parents were not at all happy about their son's plans concerning the Dark Lord. Nonetheless they did their best to hide their disapproval, assuming that somehow on the other side young people had managed to grow up much faster than it had been the custom in their generation.

"Of course we will be with you," James Potter declared. His eyes were shining with anticipation. It was their youth that startled Harry time and again. Sirius was by far the oldest round the table, given that he had lived fourteen years longer than them. His mother could have been Harry's elder sister, as could his father be his brother. Maybe it would be easier thinking about them in this way.

"Be sure we will," Lily Potter answered. "Everybody will. Just think how many thousands of souls we are. And most of them hate Lord Voldemort as much as we do."

"And," Sirius added, "consider they'll love you for giving them something to do."

--

He found it on a bookshelf. It caught his eye immediately, for who would ever store an old diary in such a moist, spidery cellar?

"Here you go, mum," he said and handed over the bottle of wine he had been asked to bring. He walked over to the fireplace. "You don't mind, do you?" he murmured. Carefully as if afraid of an explosion he put the diary into the fire.

"Harry, dear, burning books is a serious business!" his mother commented.

"I know, mum, but this one is mouldy all over. I'm sure you don't mind?"

She left the table and came to his side. "Oh, it's this old diary. No, surely I don't mind."

"Where do you have it from?"

"Oh, let me think. I found it on the street, it must be years ago. Something told me I should take it into my care. Stupid, isn't it? It's just an old book." They both winced when with a soft crack her old protection spells faded and for a moment Harry thought he could feel Tom Riddle's eyes staring at him out of the fire.

Harry threw a glance at his mother's face. In this moment he understood perfectly well why his father had fallen in love with her, long time ago. One should never underestimate a witch like her. What else might Lily Potter be storing in her cellar? What other skeletons might she be having in her cupboards?

"Thank you for saving my life the night Voldemort tried to kill me," he whispered.

"My pleasure," she answered. She gave him a quick conspiratorial smile and all of a sudden he felt sure that everything would turn out all right.

-

- - end -


End file.
